Boardin' in a Winter Wonderland

Jason and I finally did something exciting! On Saturday morning Jason literally woke up and said, “Let’s go snowboarding.” Uhh okay. Because it was already 10:30, we frantically ran around getting our stuff together so we could make it to the mountain to have at least a half day.

We drove about an hour to get to Grand Targhee Ski Resort in Alta, Wyoming. Since this part of Idaho has yet to get its big snow, the roads were really clear. It only got scary as soon as we hit Wyoming and had to drive up the hill to get to the resort – Jason gets a little impatient with me when I tell him to drive slower.

When we finally made it up the hill, it took us some time to find a parking spot, but we got lucky and snagged a good one. Jason has his own gear so we rented a board and boots for me and we bought our lift tickets. Then, it was time to hit the slopes. Oh man, I was a little rustier than I thought. I went two feet and fell, went two more feet and fell again. I took a few more runs down the baby hill before when went to the next hill (still considered a bunny hill, which I found out later).

You can't tell, but I'm super stoked!

Ski lifts scare me. Can’t they make it any easier to get on and off? I always fall getting off those dumb things. Anyway, I kind of felt like the kid whose parent just throws them in a pool so they can learn to swim because I did not feel ready for that hill. I fell a lot. I got really impatient because there were so many different ways to go and I didn’t understand where Jason was telling me to go.

Before frustrated Danielle

Jason is the little guy on the lift by himself 

He's a pro!

I eventually made it down the hill after a couple of good wipe outs with powder spraying in my face, falling forward and backward. I wanted to take a break before going down again, but the lift was going to stop running in 15 minutes. Oye, here we go again.

My second run was better, even though it still hurt at times. But I kept getting up and going because I just wanted to get down that dumb hill. I was really having trouble deciding which foot felt better in front. (I later found out that I was “goofy” – right foot forward – which meant my board was wrong) I didn’t even really know how to control my board – I thought you were just supposed to go straight down with one foot in front of the other – but Jason taught me how to zigzag down the mountain going “heel side”, “toe side” and I felt better toward the bottom of the hill.

Looking at the map of the mountain

Those few hours were just enough for me for my first time in over two years. We returned my gear and scraped off our snow-covered car and headed back down the slick mountain. Once we made it to Driggs, Idaho the streets were clear and we stopped for a bite to eat. We were so happy to find Tony’s Italian Restaurant after passing two Thai places, a Vietnamese place, and a Chinese Place. At Tony’s, I ordered creamy macaroni and cheese and Jason got, what else, pizza. After trying my mac’; however, he wished he had ordered that instead.

We WILL be going here again.

I was happy to get home, take off my damp clothes, and take a hot shower. I’ll be sore for a little while. I look forward to going back and getting more practice, but next time, I’d like to take the shuttle up to the resort instead of our little Honda.